August 9, 2024
Speed, scale, and cost reduction: What’s new in Horizon 8 with Amazon WorkSpaces Core
I am thrilled to announce new and exciting features in our Horizon 8 2406 release for deploying Omnissa Horizon® 8 with Amazon WorkSpaces Core. While customers like Lucid Motors have already taken advantage of Horizon 8 with Amazon WorkSpaces Core, we have been further developing automated provisioning enhancements to take our joint VDI solution to the next level. With the Horizon 8 2406 release, customers can now deliver their Horizon 8 desktops faster, at scale, and at a lower cost with Amazon WorkSpaces Core. Let’s look at what’s new.
Deliver desktops faster with automated provisioning
Automated pools provisioning support with Amazon WorkSpaces Core is a key update in Horizon 8 2406. Using the Horizon 8 console, IT admins can consume the WorkSpaces Core bundle (gold pattern/image), use the new Horizon agent pairing process, and automatically provision desktops on WorkSpaces Core machines. In other words, you can configure and deploy complete pools of machines in one go using automated pools — instead of creating desktop pools manually, which takes multiple steps and time. Within the automated pools flow, you can deliver these machines either all up front or on demand. Using the Horizon 8 console, you can configure and deliver these machines quickly with just a few clicks, instead of spending a lot of time scripting to build and configure these machines for various use cases.
Figure 1. Automate provisioning with Horizon 8.
Scale your desktops flexibly with confidence
Horizon 8 with Amazon WorkSpaces Core allows you to scale your environment globally with automated pool provisioning from the Horizon 8 console as your use cases change. You can also edit your pools to increase or decrease capacity for desktop pools with a few clicks. Further, you have the option to choose either persistent or non-persistent desktops with dedicated or floating pool options. The Horizon 8 console provides information about the pools deployed and their usage, and it allows updates to be made to the pools and images, as needed.
Thus, automated pool provisioning helps you with not only faster delivery of desktops but also with Day 2 management and scaling of those desktops depending on the need.
Figure 2. Scale desktops with a few clicks.
Reduce infrastructure costs with power management
The 2406 release also offers new capabilities in the Horizon 8 console to use power management features to save AWS infrastructure costs. IT admins can choose power management settings for their Horizon 8 desktops with Amazon WorkSpaces Core based on use cases for different types of desktop pools (see use cases table). From the Horizon 8 console, you can use simple dropdowns to choose between “Power Optimized” (through hourly billing) or “Always On” options for all desktops in a pool. For power-optimized pools, IT teams can create a power management schedule and choose when to suspend and resume the machines, thus optimizing costs for those that are suspended.
Additionally, you can set conditions to add spare machine capacity to the pool from the Horizon 8 console while configuring power management. Spare machines ensure there is additional capacity, allowing for pool resizing. This reduces the chances of service disruption as the user demand grows.
For non-persistent desktops, you can combine floating desktops with the power-optimized policy and choose to delete the machine upon log-off. This helps you to comply with various data security regulations such as SOC, PCI, and HIPAA.
Figure 3. Schedule desktops for optimized power management.
Sample use cases for Horizon 8 with Amazon WorkSpaces Core solution
Below are four key use cases based on desktop type and power management policies.
| Desktop Type | Description | Use Case |
Dedicated, Always-On Desktops | These are standard persistent virtual machines (VMs) assigned to individual users. | Ideal for users who consistently need access to their personalized desktop environment with installed applications and customized settings. |
Dedicated, | Like dedicated always-on desktops but optimized for cost savings. | Suitable for users who require a dedicated VM but only during specific hours of the day (e.g., work hours). The VM can be powered off during non-working hours to save resources. |
Floating, | These desktops can be either persistent or non-persistent. | Beneficial for shift workers, such as healthcare professionals, who share access to a pool of desktops. Users log in and out as needed, ensuring continuous availability. |
Floating, | Like floating always-on desktops but optimized for efficiency. | Common for non-persistent scenarios where users don’t need personalized VMs. The desktops are shared among multiple users, and resources are allocated dynamically based on demand. |
Conclusion
In summary, for Horizon 8 customers who have limited time and resources to manage their growing VDI environments, the automated provisioning feature in 2406 helps to deliver desktops faster globally with just a few clicks. Automated provisioning saves significant configuration time compared to manual desktop pool configuration. Additionally, Day 2 management of various types of Horizon 8 desktops from a single console simplifies desktop management while providing enhanced visibility. New power management capabilities, in this release, help IT save infrastructure costs through simple yet powerful policies. These enhancements are in addition to the existing best-in-class Blast protocol that comes with Horizon 8 that helps IT deliver an unparalleled end-user experience.
As a reminder, App Volumes now supports persistent desktops, including Horizon on Amazon WorkSpaces Core. App Volumes redefines how apps are delivered and managed across Horizon VDI and Apps, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Amazon Web Services. We have added the same capability to Amazon WorkSpaces Core.
If you need help migrating to Horizon 8 with Amazon WorkSpaces Core, refer to the Dizzion Navigator Migration Service.
If you need help with the design, implementation, and optimization of your virtual desktop based on Horizon 8 with Amazon WorkSpaces Core, you can use QuickStart services from our partner, Presidio.
We also introduced a beta preview for our Horizon Cloud Service Next-Gen platform support for Amazon WorkSpaces Core. If you are interested in participating use the link here.
To learn more about these and other features of Horizon 8 with Amazon WorkSpaces Core, contact your Omnissa rep today.
